Invenire Amorem Alterius
by MouseMaster42
Summary: Latin for 'To Find the Love of Another.' A Layton-eqsue wedding, but Layton is not the groom. Clive/Emmy, Layton/Claire. Oneshot, with related riddles throughout. Dedicated to my friend Sogo.


**A fic dedicated partially to my favorite pairing: Clive/Emmy, and partly dedicated to my friend **_**Sogo**_**, who was the one who first introduced me to these games. This has been sitting half-finished on my computer for months, and I finally wrapped it up today. I know it's long, but trust me, you won't regret reading through to the end. **

**(Disclaimer: Professor Layton and all related characters belong to Nintendo, not me. I brought Claire back from the dead because I can, and I stuck **_**Sogo**_**'s OC Rhonda in there as well with a cameo role.)**

**Please read, enjoy, and review. **

**~oOo~**

_**Invenire **__**Amorem Alterius**_** (To Find the Love of Another)**

**~oOo~**

He paced back and forth across the room, black shoes padding almost silently across crimson carpet as he wrung his hands anxiously, twisting the white gloves that he wore in-between slim fingers. His heart felt as if it had relocated to his chest, as the absurdity of what he was about to struck him again for the seventh or eighth time that morning.

With a heavy sigh, he turned stiffly to the older man who was in the room with him. At the moment, the older one was looking into a mirror, straightening his bow tie with a slightly glazed look on his face.

"I can't," the younger man—who was still in many ways a boy—moaned. "I'm scared."

The older man turned around with an eyebrow raised. "It's your own fault you know," he sighed. "Don't you love her?"

"Of course I love her!" the younger man burst out. "Do you think I would be here if I was not sure?" He tilted his head back in frustration to glare up at the painted ceiling. "Were you this nervous? Is it bad that I'm this nervous?"

The other man shrugged. "You were never one to run away, Clive," he said chidingly. "You'll get through this, and you'll do the right thing."

"I don't deserve her, Professor." Clive whimpered self-consciously as he began to fiddle with the gold buttons of his tailcoat. "How can I do this?"

"Of course you don't deserve her," the professor said cuttingly. "With what you've done, how could you?"

Clive flinched and turned his shoulder, averting his ashamed gaze away from the tall man next to him.

"But," the professor continued. "Men rarely deserve their brides. It is through no fault of yours that Emmy is such a fine woman."

"Layto…" Clive trailed off, letting the silken fabric that had been bunched in his hands slip through his fingers in shock.

Professor Layton smiled softly. "You don't have to worry."

"I'm scared."

"And you think she isn't?" the professor said lightly, and then took a step towards the boy. "Your tie's crooked," he explained.

Clive cocked his head to let the professor tweak at the necktie and began twisting and turning the buttons on his shirt again. The professor frowned and pried Clive's hands away from the gold and set them at his sides. He paused to straighten Clive's collar, and then stepped back to admire his work.

"This reminds me of a—"

"Don't!" Clive said sharply. "I couldn't solve it, even if you gave me one!" He sagged onto a plush chair, smoothing the tails of his jacket underneath him so that they wouldn't wrinkle. He flung a hand over his eyes, his brows furrowed in concentration. "We aren't old enough," he said.

"It's good to be young," Layton replied. "All you really need is determination."

"Or stubbornness."

Layton laughed. "Same thing, when it comes to marriage. And you both have that in spades."

Clive lifted himself up onto his elbows, a smile twisting up the corners of his mouth. "I have a puzzle for you, Professor," he said.

"Oh?" Layton asked, his curiosity piqued.

Clive Dove looked out of a stain-glass window as he said, "One by one we fall from heaven, down into the depths of our past. And our world is yet upturned, so that yet some time we'll last. What are we?"

Layton smiled. "We are the sand in an hourglass."

Clive looked as if he might have loosened up a little, and he and the professor may have exchanged puzzles like that for a while, had not a young boy burst into the room, small tailcoat flapping behind him.

"Ah, Luke," Layton smiled. The little boy pulled up to a sharp stop in front of the professor, his brown hair untidily scrunched underneath a light blue cap. "What is it, my boy?"

"They want Mr. Clive out in front," Luke said breathlessly, his white boutonniere crooked and semi-squashed into his jacket.

"Ah," Layton said briskly as he beckoned the little boy over to try and fix his flower. After giving up, he looked over at Clive, who had risen awkwardly from his seat and looked faintly green. He had returned to wringing his hands, crinkling the gloves at their creases.

"You have the ring?" he asked of Luke, who looked up at him beseechingly.

"I think so…" he said, and reached theatrically into his pocket, only to frown—confused, and probe deeper.

Clive looked as if he was about to fall over.

Luke suddenly flashed an impish smile, and produced the gold band from his other pocket. "HAH!" he cackled as Clive sank bonelessly into the chair again, bright color flooding back into his pale face. "Fooled you! Gotcha!"

"Now now," Layton chided, although he looked mildly amused.

"Don't you realize there are enough people to hate in the world already without you working so hard to give me another?" Clive snapped—relief making him tease the little boy. Luke just grinned and waved the ring in Clive's face.

"It's not like I lost it," he pouted. "I'm not that bad."

"As long as it's in jest, I can take a bit of joking, I think," Clive replied, reaching over to yank off Luke's hat. "My goodness, did your mother let you out of the house like that this morning?"

The little boy jumped for his cap. "Give it back, Clive! It was brushed earlier!" The older boy dropped the hat, which Luke quickly crammed back over his hair. "Besides," he said. "It's a wedding; you're supposed to wear hats! It's not like America, where they never wear hats anymore!"

"My ring-bearer isn't going to be wearing a hat," Clive said crossly. "Especially one that's the wrong shade of blue. It'll mess up the photos."

"I didn't realize you were the expert on things like that," Layton kidded. Clive shot him a glare, and then turned on his heel, urging Luke out of the room.

"Surely even you can see tell that this is the wrong blue," he said anxiously as he walked through the doorway. "Come on, Luke. I'll take you over to where Flora is. You can play there. Professor, see you later." He tipped his head in Layton's direction.

"Meet you at the alter, my boy," Layton grinned.

"Don't forget the girl, OK?" Clive said, his voice still tinged with nervousness as he closed the door, leaving the professor alone in the room with his thoughts.

**~oOo~**

"You'll be so pretty!" a young, brown-haired girl gushed as she circled around the older woman perched in a hairdresser's chair who was in the process of trying to do up her hair.

"No I won't," the woman sighed, plucking at a wiry strand that refused to be shoved into a bobby pin. "I'm awful at this sort of thing."

"Ugh, fine, Emmy! If you insist, I'll do it!" the girl giggled and moved behind the other woman. She quickly picked out all of the clumsily inserted pins that Emmy had put in before and started anew. She made a large, loose ponytail and wrapped a cornflower ribbon around it.

"If all you're going to do is put my hair up, I could've done that myself!" the bride hissed, her temper flaring as her hand probed what her flower girl was doing. "I wanted something special!"

"Exactly," the younger of the two girls said, sticking a pin her mouth so that she could twist the ponytail into a bun with both hands. She secured that with pins and then took a cornflower from the desk and started winding in into one of the wisps that had been left out of the original ponytail. "I know just what would calm your nerves: a puzzle!"

"Please, no," Emmy moaned. "Come on, Flora. I'm nervous enough already. What if Clive ditches?"

"He'd never do that," Flora the flower girl insisted, swallowing her own prejustices about the man in question for the sake of Emmy—who had become something like her older sister in many ways in the recent years. "He loves you, Em."

The Professor's first apprentice slid down in the chair, making Flora complain as her hairstyling was interrupted and she had to redo the strand she was twisting.

"What are you doing, anyway?" Emmy asked, starting to turn the mirror sitting on the table so that she could see what Flora was doing.

"No, not yet!" the younger girl laughed. "You'll see later; listen to my puzzle!"

With a sigh, Emmy slumped a little to put her elbows onto the dresser. "Very well. Let's hear this riddle."

"Every dawn begins with me," Flora recited. "At dusk I'll be the first you see. And daybreak couldn't come without what midday centers all about. Daisies grow from me, I'm told, and when I come, I end all cold. In the sun I won't be found, yet each day I'll still be around. What am I?"

"That's a good one," Emmy conceded as she thought about it. "…What if Clive doesn't want to be married?"

"A bit too late for that," Flora quipped, squinting as she wove another ribbon—this one a shade of light blue to match the flower—into Emmy's coarse brown hair. "I mean, what with the circumstances."

Emmy looked down at the ring glittering on her finger, black onyx and diamond both sparkling deeply in the dim church lighting. "I'm just anxious, that's all. Clive can be so…selfless, sometimes. Sometimes I can't tell whether he's doing things because he wants to, or just because he wants to help others along."

Flora scowled. "Believe me, he wasn't always like that. You're lucky he straightened out, otherwise the professor and I would never let you marry him. He's a felon!"

"His probation ends in a month," Emmy said crossly. "He did the crime, he finished his time, and look at him now! He's a proper gentleman!"

"If you say so," Flora sighed, personally unconvinced. "One thing that I know about him is that he truly loves you, so I suppose that will have to be good enough to cover all the other uncertainties. Now what about my puzzle?"

"Oh, right," Emmy sighed. "…You said that it ends all cold?"

"Yes," Flora nodded as she pinned the last strand of hair, leaving a single coil loose to curl around Emmy's left shoulder. She took a step back to admire her handiwork from the back.

"…It's the letter D, isn't it?" Emmy guessed, and flipped the mirror back before Flora could stop her. "Wow," she said at length, turning her chin to admire herself. "This is really pretty."

"Isn't it?" Flora squealed. "You got the puzzle right, by the way. This is a twisted bun style, but I adapted it a little, just for fun."

Emmy twirled the loose curl in-between her fingers, and then turned her eyes down to her white dress. "It's perfect," she whispered, feeling her eyes start to well up. "It's all perfect."

"Don't start!" Flora laughed. "You'll muss up your makeup, and it took us ages to do it right, remember?"

Emmy sighed through her nose and quickly wiped her eyes, hoping that her mascara wasn't smeared. "I'm alright. Don't worry. Besides, Clive doesn't like much makeup anyway."

Flora looked down at the older woman with a strange, faraway look on her face. Emmy tried to catch her eye, but Flora was unreceptive, despite the fact that she was looking directly at Emmy.

"What's up?" Emmy asked. "I can't have you zoning out on my wedding day, can I?"

"Sorry," Flora said, blinking quickly. "I guess I did just zone out there, didn't I?" She smiled reassuringly down at Emmy. "It just struck me now, I guess, that you're really marrying him."

"Is that…alright?" Emmy asked. "I mean, you said that there was something there, but…? I thought you and he didn't get along much anymore?"

Flora shook her head. "No, no, it's not like that at all. It's just…weird. Thinking of you as being married. You'll be Emmy Dove now, instead of Emmy Altalva. It's weird to think about."

"It's exciting to think about," Emmy corrected eagerly. "…But also weird. And a bit scary, if you ask me. But Clive and I are excited. It'll be great. I know that if we both stay committed, we'll do great, and we'll have a lot of fun together. I wish I could see him now."

Just as Flora was about to explain why she couldn't see Clive at the moment, the man himself walked into the room, towing a complaining Luke behind him.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Flora screeched, dashing forward to shove him back out of the door. "You can't see Emmy yet! It's BAD LUCK!"

"Sorry!" Clive yelped, giving into Flora's pathetic shoves as he backpedaled quickly. "I didn't see anything, I swear! Flora, you're messing up my tie! Let me go!"

"I don't want to sit here, it's boring here!" Luke chimed in, raising his voice to a shout to be heard over Flora and Clive, who had faced off against each other in the hallway. Within the room, Emmy had half-risen from her seat. After a long silence, Flora stormed back into the room, tightly gripping Luke's sleeve and practically flinging the small boy into a chair.

"Wow!" he said eagerly the moment he regained his bearings and looked at Emmy. "You look amazing, Em!"

"You look nice too, Apprentice-Number-Two," Emmy said. "How's Clive?"

"Nervous!" Luke laughed. "You should have seen him! He's so nervous—I thought he was going to puke!"

"Luke," Flora groaned. "That's not the sort of thing you tell the bride right before her wedding."

"But it's true!" Luke protested. "I swear it! He nearly collapsed when I told him a joke!"

"What'd you tell him?" Emmy asked.

Luke grinned bashfully. "That I lost your ring. He almost lost his head! It was so funny!"

"But you haven't lost it, right?" Flora asked crisply.

"Course not!" Luke said, offended that two people in a row now had thought he was that dumb. "I have it right her—" He fumbled in his tailcoat pocket. "Uh-oh."

"Ha ha," Flora said dryly. "You're faking."

"No, no I'm not!" Luke said, his face ashen. "I really lost it!" He pulled out both pockets to show the two girls that they were empty.

"They're in your pants!" Flora accused, her voice rising as she started to get nervous. Emmy wasn't particularly concerned, as she thought she had some idea of what had happened.

Luke turned out his pants pockets as well. "It's not there!"

"YOU LOST THE WEDDING RING!" Flora yelped, turning on her heel—her light blue dress swishing around her knees. "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!"

The caterer suddenly stuck his head in the door, wiping frosting-covered hands on a flower-patterned apron. "Um, is Luke Triton in this room?" he asked.

"Yes…?" Luke sniffled, standing awkwardly in the center of the room with all of his pockets outturned. "What is it?"

The tall blonde chef stuck a hand into his pocket and pulled out something in a black box. "Clive Dove sends his regards," he said as he passed off the box. "Don't know what's in there, kiddo, but he told me to tell you not to steal what was soon to be his again." With a jaunty wave, he turned to leave.

Luke, scarcely able to believe his eyes, cracked open the box at an angle where Emmy couldn't see to confirm that the ring was actually inside. "I don't believe him," he whispered as relief flooded through him. "That…that…sadist!"

"By the way," the blonde caterer said from the doorway. "You said you wanted vanilla cake, right Ma'am?"

"Y-yes," Emmy stuttered. "But wait, Sir, I thought you were blind!" The chef had been commissioned all the way from America for his cake-baking skills, made even more impressive by the fact that he had been blind since he was a boy. "How'd you know I was here? Moreover, how'd you know where to come?"

"I have my ways," the man smirked. "Good day." With a salute, he left the room.

"That man was strange," Luke scowled at the door.

"I thought he was rather dashing," Flora said thoughtfully, still looking at the door even though the man had long left.

A woman with auburn hair tied in an elegant bun suddenly replaced the blonde boy in the doorway. Like Flora, she was dressed in the cornflower blue of a bridesmaid. Behind her stood a woman who looked almost exactly like Emmy, and her bridesmaid's dress had a white sash tied across the front, indicating that she was the maid of honor.

"Rhonda!" Emmy laughed. "You're here!" There had been a bit of confusion with the dates, and Emmy's sister Ronda hadn't been able to get on the right flight—it was unsure whether or not she would be able to attend. "Now everything really is perfect!"

The other woman smiled as Ronda raced across the room to hug her sister. "Emmy, it's time to go. Clive's waiting."

"Sure, Claire," Emmy grinned. "Let's go."

**~oOo~**

Clive stood in one of the side chapels along with the presiding priest; Layton's old mentor, Andrew Schrader—who had obtained his wedding license a few months ago and had been itching to try it out.

"My boy, you're going to wear through those gloves before the procession even starts," Schrader observed, noticing how Clive's fingers kept intertwining and clenching.

"Tch." Clive sighed when he realized that he was still wringing his hands. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, boy," Schrader laughed, taking pity on the young man. "Oh, look, there are your parents."

Clive, startled, stuck his head out into the sanctuary to see Cogg and Spring being led down the aisle and sat in the seats generally reserved for the groom's parents.

"Oh," Clive sighed as the Altalva parents were seated just after. "I'm sorry, Doctor. You're mistaken. Those are not my parents. They're just…old friends."

As Schrader was about to say something, the organ exploded into music, drowning out what he would have said. Clive leaned up against the stone wall, his face completely washing out of color again. Schrader, realizing that Clive couldn't hear him, settled for clapping the boy's shoulder as he led the way out towards the altar, where he knelt down to pray. Clive stepped out into the lights after him, squinting a little until his eyes got used to it.

All of a sudden his legs felt like rubber, and it was all he could do to shuffle over to the altar in front of Schrader and turn around to face the front of the church, which was decorated with a large stained-glass window. He thought he would lose his nerve if he had to watch everyone approach. It would be helpful if he had his best man—Layton—standing next to him. At least with Layton there, he wouldn't have to worry about cracking his head open if he happened to stumble. Unfortunately, Layton was also functioning as Emmy's substitute father, meaning that he was the one walking her down the aisle. Her father—who had lost the use of his legs during the war—had heartily supported the last-minute substitute, insisting that it was for the best.

Changes in the music indicated to Clive—who had once studied wedding marches as part of a composition class he had taken on a whim in college—when certain people entered, and he sensed rather than saw the single bridesmaid, Claire, enter the church to start off the procession. Following close behind her were Shipley and Lando Ascad, who were both functioning as Clive's groomsmen. Clive longed to turn around, for those three now-familiar faces would have been a welcome comfort, but it would be strange to turn and then have to turn back around once the bride entered.

After the bridesmaid and groomsmen were Flora and Luke, walking hand in hand down the aisle. He knew from their hallway encounter that Flora was wearing a silky bluish dress that was a lighter shade than that of the bridesmaids, and Luke was wearing a scaled-down tuxedo with the semi-squashed flower in front. Flora was to be scattering a mixture of white rose petals and whole cornflowers—accenting the established theme of blue and white. As those two took their place behind Clive at the alter, Emmy's sister Rhonda started the maid of honor's walk down the aisle. Once she reached her place, the music took on a more marvelous tone, and Clive knew without looking that his bride had just started down the aisle.

Just as it had earlier, his heart leapt from its cavity in his chest all the way up to his throat, and he fought with every ounce of strength he had not to turn around. He had decided he wouldn't. He wanted the first time he saw Emmy in her dress to be when he took her hand as they approached that place where they would be wed. He wanted that moment to be special.

He had botched so much up in this whole relationship—everything from the order of things to be done to preparations for this wedding to his clumsy proposal itself (he hadn't even been able to pick out the ring on his own without asking for help)—and yet here they both were. It was remarkable.

"Are you okay?" Claire, who stood directly behind him, whispered. "You look a bit sick."

"I'm great," Clive whispered truthfully, his hands hanging at his sides. "I'm just nervous, that's all. From what I've heard, that's perfectly normal."

"Yes," Claire agreed. "It's perfectly normal. You should have seen me and Hershel, I nearly tripped coming down the aisle."

"Emmy's too graceful for that," Clive laughed, feeling some of the tension leave him. Surely if Claire and Layton had had this hard of a time, he would be fine.

**~oOo~**

Emmy's hand was clasped tightly in the hand of the professor's, and she kept shooting him nervous glances through her veil, which he returned each time with a serene smile. They were following Rhonda down the aisle, and Emmy found herself matching her footsteps to the pace of her sister's simply to keep her own balance. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she was having a difficult time processing exactly what she was doing. It wasn't that she wasn't sure that she was making the right choice, or she thought that she wasn't old enough to marry. It was a happier sort of disbelief; like she couldn't quite grasp the miracle of the situation.

The whole scene shimmered before her, and it took her a moment to realize that her eyes had watered, blurring the shapes of the men and woman walking before her.

They were all familiar to her now: the Professor,—who had for all intents and purposes been her father for a period of her life—who still kept a tight, reassuring grip on her hand; her one and only sister, Rhonda, walking sure and proud in front of her, leading the way; Luke and Flora, looking young and adorable and pure; Lando and Shipley (these two she didn't know as well as the others, but she was still familiar enough with them to know that they were both good people and good friends of Clive and the professor), standing tall in their black suits, attentively watching the procession with huge smiles on their faces; the bridesmaid, Claire—Layton's wife, watching her with a kind, expectant expression on her pointed face; her own parents sitting in the aisle, both of their eyes sparkling with proud tears….

And there, on the alter, standing with his back to the congregation, was her fiancé. She would have known him anywhere. From the moment she had met him after he had been released from prison; she had known that he was something special. Clive Dove wasn't like everybody else. He was soft and hard, stunning and subtle, kind and understanding. There was an air of empathy about him—like he had been through much, and therefore understood much. It had been that original aura that attracted her to him, she thought, and she had grown to love him for his wit and his laugh, and for the way he always made her smile as they bumbled their way into adulthood together.

So she wasn't uncertain at all. She knew that this was right. She felt it in her soul.

"Dear Emmy," Layton said quietly, his voice startling her out of her memories. She looked up at him curiously, and he smiled down at her bemusedly. "You've always loved puzzles, darling, haven't you?" he said quietly. "I'd like to give you just one more, before you are no longer mine."

Emmy opened her mouth to say something, but he continued regardless.

"I always considered you my daughter, Emmy," he admitted bashfully. "And through you, I am about to gain a second son. So I would like to give you one more puzzle before I must give you up."

"Okay," Emmy said breathlessly, unable to think of anything else to say.

"'The more you take, the more you leave behind,'" the professor recited. "What are you?"

Her mind was a blur. "I don't know. What am I?"

He smiled at her again, and that smile was as familiar to her as her own reflection. "Footsteps, my dear."

And then they had reached the alter, and he let his hand slip from hers, only to have her hand lightly touched by another.

She looked up into Clive's eyes then, and saw her face reflected back at her, and the rightness of the scenario came upon her again, bringing tears to her eyes.

He saw her eyes glisten and his face became concerned. "Are you alright?" he asked softly, aware that the entire church, including the organ, had quieted, hoping to catch their words to each other.

She laughed. "I'm great," she replied. "I'm great."

He laughed, the sound ringing out through the silent chapel like the bells that would announce the end of the ceremony in just a short while. "Then I'm great as well."

**~oOo~**

And so they were wed. The procession moved without a hitch, although both the bride and groom were startled when Schrader abandoned the traditional litany and started substituting typical Layton-esque phrases instead. For example, when Luke brought up the ring, instead of reciting a prayer to bless the gold band, instead he said 'What holds two people together but only touches one?' Clive had nodded like he understood, and then slid the ring onto Emmy's finger, replacing the engagement ring that he had given her a few months previous.

And then, the last line was not 'will you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, and will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?' but instead; 'Two words is my answer. In order to keep me, you have to give me, what am I?'

This time they both answered in unison, "My word."

Schrader had smiled at the both of them then, and asked for two more words.

That was easy: "I do," they said in unison, and the church bells suddenly exploded into harmonious sound, drowning out the shattering applause from everyone in the pews. Confetti and flowers rained down on the two of them, and amidst all of the chaos, Clive Dove plucked Emmy Dove up from the ground and spun with her in his arms, a giddy pleasure making his veins feel like they were filled with liquid light and making his head feel like it would explode with sheer joy. She clutched at him the way one would grab at something precious, something that you never want to misplace or lose, even if it means never letting go of it. She clung to him as he spun, her laughter mixing with his as they twirled around their sanctuary, their ears ringing with the applause of friends and family.

And then, when the applause had died down and they had grown quite dizzy, he set her down, only to cup her face with his hands and kiss her.

A second wave of thunderous applause seemed to shake the air, and the joy radiating out from the two of them flowed out across the assembled Londoners, filling them with unexplainable joy as well.

"What am I?" one of the Doves asked the other, finding something of herself in his eyes as her hands tangled with his.

"You are mine," he replied, his mouth quirking up in a surprised smile, as if he had never believed such a thing possible. "And I am yours."

"Forever," she nodded. "Don't you go anywhere."

He chuckled, the sound quiet and soft against her neck as he hugged her close to him. "I won't. I love you."

"I love you," the words were echoed back to him, and they were repeated throughout the large room, not just by the two who had just been married.

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

"…I will always love you."

_Fin. _

**~oOo~ **

**Flora and Iggy (the blind chef) would make a cute couple. XD Please review and let me know what you think! :) If you liked it, I might do more like this in the future. **


End file.
